Yet another article on the decline of science in Russia by Fred Weir of Christian Science Monitor. Excerpts:
Nikolai Podorvanyuk works by day as a scientist at Moscow's prestigious Institute of Astron¬omy and moonlights as an editor at an online newspaper by night. If you guessed that the science job is his big breadwinner, you'd be wrong. He lives on his journalist's income.
"For me the most important thing is my career in astronomy, but unfortunately it doesn't pay much," says Mr. Podorvanyuk.
A recent comparison between Podorvanyuk's institute and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg found that the Russian organization had twice the staff but received one-sixth the funding of its German counterpart.
… Though most scientists cite lack of funding as the key problem, others say the crisis runs much deeper and may not be solved even if government science budgets were restored to Soviet-era levels.
Russian state financing for science rose when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was president to a post-Soviet high of about 2 billion USD in 2008, but has since fallen back slightly. That's barely 2 percent of what the United States government spends annually to support scientific work, complained the vice president of Russia's official Academy of Sciences, Gennady Mesyats, in an interview published on the academy's website this month.
"It's not just about money, it's also about motivation," says Andrei Ionin, a scientific philosopher, who works in the space industry. "The profession of scientist is not prestigious anymore, and the government does not define scientific tasks that would attract talented people.
"Money matters," he says, "but social recognition is also a very important factor in choosing a career. And that's what's missing these days."
… The average age of Russian scientists now hovers at over 50, says Andrei Petrov, chair of President Dmitri Medvedev's council to promote greater youth participation in science. Mr. Medvedev has made "modernization," including boosting scientific research and innovation, the signature theme of his presidency.
"Young people are gradually trickling back into science, and salaries have grown," says Mr. Petrov, "but now we urgently need to see investment in scientific infrastructure like laboratories and equipment."
He says about one-third of Russian scientists are under 40, while half are over 50. "That needs to be reversed," he says. "The president is offering special programs, grants, and prizes for young scientists. Things are stabilizing."
… The Kremlin is also pressing for reform of the science establishment, including sharp staff cuts, and shifting the workload away from the country's hundreds of Soviet-era research institutes to universities and corporations, as is common in the West.
The government needs to take a stronger hand, some argue, not only in funding but also organizing scientific research. Centralized control over scientific research, which was a great strength of the Soviet system, has evaporated, says Yevgeny Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov Institute, Russia's leading nuclear science center. "We have no counterpart to the Department of Energy," the cabinet-level agency that coordinates and funds a wide range of US scientific research, he says.
… Russia's once mighty space program, which gave the world Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, still has a few grand plans. But for now it ekes out a living by working as a taxicab to the International Space Station and playing host to high-paying "space tourists."
Nikolai Podorvanyuk works by day as a scientist at Moscow's prestigious Institute of Astron¬omy and moonlights as an editor at an online newspaper by night. If you guessed that the science job is his big breadwinner, you'd be wrong. He lives on his journalist's income.
"For me the most important thing is my career in astronomy, but unfortunately it doesn't pay much," says Mr. Podorvanyuk.
A recent comparison between Podorvanyuk's institute and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg found that the Russian organization had twice the staff but received one-sixth the funding of its German counterpart.
… Though most scientists cite lack of funding as the key problem, others say the crisis runs much deeper and may not be solved even if government science budgets were restored to Soviet-era levels.
Russian state financing for science rose when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was president to a post-Soviet high of about 2 billion USD in 2008, but has since fallen back slightly. That's barely 2 percent of what the United States government spends annually to support scientific work, complained the vice president of Russia's official Academy of Sciences, Gennady Mesyats, in an interview published on the academy's website this month.
"It's not just about money, it's also about motivation," says Andrei Ionin, a scientific philosopher, who works in the space industry. "The profession of scientist is not prestigious anymore, and the government does not define scientific tasks that would attract talented people.
"Money matters," he says, "but social recognition is also a very important factor in choosing a career. And that's what's missing these days."
… The average age of Russian scientists now hovers at over 50, says Andrei Petrov, chair of President Dmitri Medvedev's council to promote greater youth participation in science. Mr. Medvedev has made "modernization," including boosting scientific research and innovation, the signature theme of his presidency.
"Young people are gradually trickling back into science, and salaries have grown," says Mr. Petrov, "but now we urgently need to see investment in scientific infrastructure like laboratories and equipment."
He says about one-third of Russian scientists are under 40, while half are over 50. "That needs to be reversed," he says. "The president is offering special programs, grants, and prizes for young scientists. Things are stabilizing."
… The Kremlin is also pressing for reform of the science establishment, including sharp staff cuts, and shifting the workload away from the country's hundreds of Soviet-era research institutes to universities and corporations, as is common in the West.
The government needs to take a stronger hand, some argue, not only in funding but also organizing scientific research. Centralized control over scientific research, which was a great strength of the Soviet system, has evaporated, says Yevgeny Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov Institute, Russia's leading nuclear science center. "We have no counterpart to the Department of Energy," the cabinet-level agency that coordinates and funds a wide range of US scientific research, he says.
… Russia's once mighty space program, which gave the world Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, still has a few grand plans. But for now it ekes out a living by working as a taxicab to the International Space Station and playing host to high-paying "space tourists."
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